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Billionaire Mark Cuban is interested in launching social games to improve the productivity and profitably of the businesses he owns and runs, including the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and HDNet, an operator of high-definition TV channels. In a recent post on his blog, Cuban put out a call for developers, saying that he wanted to invest in social game projects:

"I'm looking for consumer and corporate applications. I’m not looking for knockoffs of existing games/apps... My preference for all the above is that they run on or integrate deeply with Facebook and/or iTunes 10/Ping and all the devices they support."

I reached out to Cuban to ask what kind of social games he wanted to develop. He said he wants all his businesses to each have their own games. For the Mavericks, which he owns, Cuban wants to build a social game that the "Mavs can be part of" that is compelling enough to turn players who don't already like the team into fans.

As for HDNet, of which he is the chief executive, Cuban thinks that having employees play social games could make repetitive tasks seem fun, thereby increasing productivity at work.

"I think social games will extend very quickly into the business space," Cuban says. "I'm a big believer that they solve a very big problem most companies have at various levels: boredom. People in a lot of positions get bored to tears or lose interest in what they are doing. Social gaming can add some fun and competition to mundane clerical and other tasks."

'Productivity games' are still a niche genre of gaming, but one that is being taken seriously by some academics and researchers. The idea is to put to use the qualities that make a game engaging and exciting -- the competition, social interaction, user interface and other game mechanics -- in a work setting. A number of companies have also been using and experimenting with productivity games. Microsoft, for instance, has used games to entice employees to beta test products like Microsoft Office Communicator and localized versions of the Windows operating system.